Chess by Peter Jennings, for the Radio Shack Color Computer, a.k.a. the CoCo.

Chess by Peter Jennings, for the Radio Shack Color Computer, a.k.a. the CoCo.

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ET, the Extra Terrestrial, for the Atari 2600, based on the movie.

ET, the Extra Terrestrial, for the Atari 2600, based on the movie.

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Lemondate Stand was a game that taught the basics of capitalism, and came with the Apple II computer.

Lemondate Stand was a game that taught the basics of capitalism, and came with the Apple II computer.

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Pac Man for Atari, the first home version of the groundbreaking arcade game.

Pac Man for Atari, the first home version of the groundbreaking arcade game.

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The Hobbit, and adventure game. This version ran on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and came with a copy of the book.

The Hobbit, and adventure game. This version ran on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and came with a copy of the book.

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VisiCalc is generally considered as the first computer spreadsheet and was written for the Apple II.

VisiCalc is generally considered as the first computer spreadsheet and was written for the Apple II.

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WordStar was, in its day, the most popular word processor. This version is for CP/M on the Osborne I computer.

WordStar was, in its day, the most popular word processor. This version is for CP/M on the Osborne I computer.

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Run historic software in your Web browser

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The personal computer revolution is now almost 40 years old – if you date it from the original Altair 8800 – and a lot of software has come and gone since then. Many of the earliest applications won’t run on today’s powerful machines – if you can find copies of them at all.

That’s right, now you can once again experience the thrill of writing in WordStar, in all its green-screen, CP/M-based glory.

Or maybe you’re a numbers person. Get your functions on by diving into VisiCalc, the original personal-computer spreadsheet written for the Apple II.

There are also some classic games from a variety of platforms, such as The Hobbit, an illustrated adventure game that ran on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

The Internet Software Archive is using an in-browser emulator call JSMESS, which is a javascript version of an emulator called MESS. It works in most modern Web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

The challenge of running these program largely comes from figuring out how the keyboard controls them. For example, you’ll want to keep the supplied diagram of the ZX Spectrum keyboard handy while playing The Hobbit. And here’s hoping you remember your CTRL-key codes for WordStar.